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To be fair I never got to use a calculator in university tests and I'm glad I learned mental math in years prior to prepare me for that. (Though admittedly that

• II2II 5y ago
  They probably meant electronic calculators. When I asked my prof about using a sliderule, they said that was fine. (Granted, that was in physics where the graders usually use the final answer as a check and rarely deduct many marks if all of the work leading up to an incorrect numerical answer is correct.)
• dhosek 5y ago
  In my college classes either calculators were permitted (physics and chemistry tests) or were irrelevant (upper division mathematics). When I taught high school in the 00s, I had to impose rules about what sort of calculators were permitted to avoid cheating, especially as devices which could be used for communication like network-connected palm pilots were available.¹ I also wanted to have the kids avoid buying a $99 TI-89 when a much cheaper calculator was sufficient for the work they were doing. ⸻⸻⸻ 1. I remember one cheating technique that my friends in high school AP Chem used where a group of us were sharing a calculator. You would type in the question number you needed an answer for and someone else would type in the letter of the answer (we generally had multiple choice tests).